How Does Inbox Dollars Work?

Inbox Dollars pays you for completing a variety of tasks, using their search engine, and for reading emails.

The payouts for these activities are extremely low though, so don’t get your hopes up. You won’t be able to make money quickly OR easily with Inbox Dollars, since you have to wait until you earn $30 before you can cash out your earnings.

Some Inbox Dollars members have reported earning hundreds of dollars per year, but to earn that kind of money you’d have to be extremely active.

The payouts are simply too low for the amount of time you have to spend.

For example, reading one of their emails will earn you 2 cents, but you actually have to click on the email and then click on a link within the email which will take you to the Inbox Dollars website in order to claim your earnings. Is that time worth 2 cents? Maybe for some people.

Inbox Dollars pays you for doing many things, not just for reading emails. Below is a list of all the ways to earn money with Inbox Dollars:

Join & Fill Out a Few Quick Surveys

Inbox Dollars pays you $5 just to sign up, and another $1 when you complete your General Profile Survey, a Household Survey, and an Interests Survey. These surveys will each take a few minutes to complete. However, bear in mind that the payment threshold is $30, so there’s still another $24 to go before you can cash out….

Complete Offers

Completing offers can be a fast way to rack up some cash, but they are usually quite a pain as well.

You’ll have to sign up for certain websites that Inbox Dollars is promoting, and when you do you’ll earn a few cents (or a few dollars, depending on the offer).

These offers each have their own terms of service and privacy policies, so be sure to read the legal stuff carefully. Many people get tons of spam emails and phone calls, because in the process of completing an offer they gave their email or phone number to a shady business, which then sold that information to other shady businesses.

Most offers also require that you sign up for a free trial (which you’ll have to remember to cancel), and some even require you to pay for a service.

Unless you are genuinely interested in an offer, it’s best to simply ignore them, no matter how much Inbox Dollars will pay you for completing them.

Take Surveys

Another way to earn money with Inbox Dollars is by completing surveys. Typically, the surveys pay around 25 cents to a dollar each, but they can take a while to complete. Oftentimes as long as half an hour or more.

Unfortunately, you won’t qualify for many of the surveys you attempt. This is because the companies conducting the surveys either realize you’re not the demographic they were targeting, or because they found you were providing dishonest answers.

A lot of Inbox Dollars members have been kicked out of surveys after having spent over half an hour on them, without any kind of compensation. Most websites, like Swagbucks for example, at least pay you a little bit in return for you time.

Search the Web

If you use Inbox Dollars’ search engine to browse the web, you’ll earn a penny or two for every four searches you make. However, you are limited to earning 15 cents a day with their search engine.

Hint:

If you want to make money browsing the web, check out Qmee. With Qmee, you can cash out any earnings right away (no minimum required!).

Watch TV

Yes, Inbox Dollars has their very own TV station that you can watch. You get paid 1 cent for watching a couple videos (to me it looked more like video playlists than TV but what do I know?)

The videos all have ads before them though, which seem to take quite a while to load. However, you can have the videos running in the background and make a couple cents as you work on other things.

Play Games

This isn’t a way to actually earn money, rather it’s a way to get cash back on in-game purchases. If you already play any of these games, playing them through Inbox Dollars would be a good idea.

However, for people like myself, who have no interest in any of these games, there’s absolutely no point in playing them.

Watch Videos

This is essentially the same as the Inbox Dollars TV feature. You can earn a penny or two by watching a playlist of several videos.

This feature is simply not worth it in my opinion.

I would much rather watch videos I’m actually interested in on YouTube. But, some people love this feature and use it regularly. To each his own, I guess.

Get Cashback for Shopping

If you do a lot of shopping online, this could be a good way to earn some cash back for it.

Inbox Dollars offers a small percentage cashback for shopping at various online stores, such as Walmart and Kohl’s. The cashback percentage is quite small though, ranging from 1.5% to 4% depending on the store.

Save Money with Coupons

Inbox Dollars has hundreds of grocery coupons available which can be printed out and used. For each coupon you redeem, you’ll also earn 10 cents on Inbox Dollars.

So, not only are you saving money, but you’re earning some as well. Before you can use them however, you’ll need to verify your phone number.

Earn Money with Referrals

You can refer others to Inbox Dollars and make 10% of what they earn for life. So, for every $1 they make, you’ll earn 10 cents.

If you have a large network of friends, this would be the best way to earn money from Inbox Dollars. People don’t like to be spammed though, so only promote it to others if you truly believe Inbox Dollars is worth their time.

Listen to the Radio

Inbox Dollars has their own Radio, which apparently only plays music. You can earn about 1 cent for every ten minutes of listening, but you can’t go do other things while it’s playing – you have to stay on the Radio page.

Enter Sweepstakes

Yet another way to earn money with Inbox Dollars is by entering the sweepstakes. It doesn’t cost any money to enter the sweepstakes, but it does cost “sweeps” which you can earn along with cash for certain activities. Since sweeps are only good for entering the sweepstakes, there’s really nothing to lose.

Redeem “WinIt” Codes

Inbox Dollars regularly posts “WinIt” codes on their social media profiles, and members can redeem these codes for prizes. I redeemed one, and earned 6 sweeps. WinIt codes are nothing more than just a fun way to earn small prizes now and then.

Read Emails

As mentioned above, reading emails is one of the ways to earn pennies with Inbox Dollars.

For some reason, a lot of people really love this feature. I, for one, don’t care for this feature, as the earnings are simply too low to be worth my time. And, they only send a few emails a day, which means you can only make a few cents per day with this feature.

Answer “Learn and Earn” Polls

Inbox Dollars regularly posts a Poll (which they call “Learn and Earn”) for their members, and answering it will earn you a few cents.

Although this is a quick and easy process, it isn’t a very fast way to earn pennies.

Complete “My List” Tasks

Inbox Dollars gives members a list of tasks to complete, and when you complete every task on the list you’ll get a $0.50 bonus.

How Much Money Can You Make from Inbox Dollars?

How much money you can make depends on your level of activity.

Would you spend time taking surveys, completing offers, and doing other tasks on Inbox Dollars every day?

If so, you could expect to hit the $30 cash-out threshold in a month or two.

On the other hand, if you only do a few tasks every once in a while, it would take many months to amass just $30.

How Does Inbox Dollars Pay?

Inbox Dollars offers three payment options:

Inbox Dollars eCard – this is simply a gift card. There are a bunch of gift card options, including Amazon, Target and Kohl’s.

Prepaid Visa – this can be used like cash everywhere Visa is accepted.

Check – a traditional check payment that you can deposit into your bank account or cash.

Is There a Minimum Payout Threshold?

Yes, and it ties with SendEarnings for the highest amount required I’ve seen on any GPT site.

However, there’s no transaction fee if you can earn another $10 in one month to reach $40, so for those who want to avoid the fee, you’ll have to wait a little longer.

Inbox Dollars Complaints

The fact that Inbox Dollars has been around since 2000 with a mediocre reputation means there’s bound to be plenty of complaints against it. Following is a list of the most common complaints:

It takes too long to reach $30

You have to be seriously active in order to reach $30 in a reasonable amount of time. If you only use Inbox Dollars to search the web and do a few other quick tasks, it will take a very long time before you reach $30.

Terminates your account when attempting to cash out

A lot of people have complained that their account gets terminated when they try to cash out.

This is because Inbox Dollars has a rule that you must participate on the site every ten days, otherwise your account will be deemed inactive.

In their Terms and Conditions, they clearly state that inactive accounts cannot cash out:

“Payment Requests are removed if a Member’s Account becomes inactive. The automated system that deactivates Members based on the above criteria runs immediately prior to payment requests being processed. Therefore, it is possible for a Member’s Account to be active right up until the moment before their payment is processed.”

You won’t qualify for most surveys

This complaint is common among pretty much every survey site.

Many members of Inbox Dollars have complained that they’ll spend more than 2 hours taking surveys, but disqualify from every single one.

This is because the companies conducting the surveys through Inbox Dollars are targeting a specific demographic, and if you’re not the demographic they’re looking for, Inbox Dollars will kick you out of the survey without any compensation.

You’ll get spam phone calls and emails if you’re not very careful

Be careful which offers you sign up with. If they ask for your phone number (and email, for that matter), be sure to read their terms of service and privacy policy.

Many offers you sign up with will sell your information to other companies, which will result in multiple spam phone calls and emails every day.

You can’t use a strong password

This was a bit of a shock for me. I always use extremely strong passwords which include letters, numbers, and special characters. But with Inbox Dollars, I had to use an inferior password, because they only allow passwords with numbers, letters and the underscore. No special characters…. I’m not sure why they have this rule, but it seems somewhat odd to me.

Only one account allowed per household and computer

Only one member per household can have an Inbox Dollars account. Also, you can only have 1 account per computer.

Don’t allow someone else to sign in to their Inbox Dollars account on your computer, otherwise you’ll both be banned.

Many members have not been credited for offers they completed

Apparently, many of the offers you attempt won’t even give you credit for completing them. And since these offers are from third-parties, Inbox Dollars isn’t responsible if you don’t get credited.

Inbox Dollars Pros and Cons

Pros

100% free

Available in many countries (though the payouts are highest in the U.S.)

Inbox Dollars has been around since 2000, which is an eternity in the online world

If you enjoy GPT sites, then you’ll love Inbox Dollars for all the different ways to earn

Good referral system, with the potential to make hundreds of dollars every month

Cons

You won’t qualify for most of the surveys you attempt, and you won’t be compensated for surveys you disqualify from

You have to be active at least once every 10 days in order to avoid account termination

You aren’t allowed to have special characters in your password

Unless you’re very careful with what offers you sign up for, you’ll get tons of spam phone calls and emails

Only one account is allowed per household and computer

Some offers may not give you credit

Final Thoughts

Inbox Dollars is a legitimate, but extremely time-consuming and frustrating way to make money online (if you were to ask me. lol).

Of all the GPT sites I’ve reviewed so far, it’s definitely my least favorite. It’s not a scam though, because people are getting paid and you don’t actually LOSE money from it as long as you remain active.

I can’t recommend Inbox Dollars to anyone though, because I know there are much better alternatives out there. However, if you’re the type of person who loves taking surveys and signing up for risky offers, have at it.

If you’re looking for a serious work from home opportunity, GPT sites like Inbox Dollars are not the way to go.

I would suggest building your own website and monetizing it with affiliate links and ads.

This is what I do, and it’s actually a lot easier than I expected.

Basically, all I need to do is regularly write blog posts, which in turn will drive traffic to my website. I mean, there’s a little more to it than that…but literally anyone can learn the process pretty quickly (and for free).

I’m not aware that there are many ways to earn monies (pennies) such as read emails and listen to radios. Still, the stake is to high particularly with ‘inferior password’ and relations to shady business. I would still go for, like as you said, blogging. Much safer and higher chance of earning wealth significantly.

Great review and still pretty much relevant. The site has changed a bit since you did this review but most of the earning opportunities are still available. I have to agree with the comment above that earning with InboxDollars has gotten pretty hard.

I would also recommend that no one waste their time with Inbox Dollars. I had gotten up to $50 on it, which is a lot for that site and accidentally let my account go inactive, so they deactivated my account and put me back at $0.

Ive worked extremely hard taking surveys and watching endless videos for months goving up almost all my freetime. Today i got up to $200. About noon my account became locked and im now under their own investigation and they are threatning to not pay me cent. Wow! Im so pissed right now. They wont tell me much or what im accused of. Ill update this as soon as i know.